Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1980

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Coyle, William

Abstract

H. L. Mencken consistently employed certain criteria when judging novels. The criteria that he used included plausible characters, whose actions follow logically from given motivations; imaginatively presented descriptions; accurate speech patterns; an author's application of an ironic attitude; sound structure; and the absence of didacticism. These criteria or principles are derived fran Mencken's comments on Joseph Conrad, Theodore Dreiser, and other writers. He applied these principles in judging the novels of H. G. Wells and of Sinclair Lewis up to 1929.

Extent

62 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1980.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT14026

Format

pdf

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